The Bluesummer Ultimatum
by Thaeonblade
Summary: During their final confrontation, Legato forced Vash to make an impossible choice. However, was it the only choice that Vash could have taken? This one-shot says otherwise.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun, moving on...  
**

* * *

"Kill me." Legato stood still, standing as Vash remained on his knees with a gun pointed to the psychic's face.

"I can't!"

"What?" At first it was funny, but now Legato was growing tired of this, "You do realize that you're having an emotional crisis about having to kill a complete monster who takes control of people, forces them to kill themselves in grotesque ways and possibly make a few into hot dogs."

"I..."

"Such as the one you ate this morning." Legato smiled upon seeing Vash vomit onto the side of the cliff, "Still having trouble deciding to kill me?"

"It's exactly what you want!" Vash shouted in anger, "Why should I do something that I don't want to! That you want me to do! That Knives would want me to do!"

"So you cling to the teachings of a naive hypocrite?" Now Legato decided to toy with the fool, "A hopeless girl who stood by while Tesla was dissected like an insect and then says to you that no one has the right to take the life of another?"

"That was different!"

"A predator who hunts does so to feed itself and its young." Legato pointed out as a hawk flew over with a mouse in it's claws, "Not doing that which is necessary will be more harmful to future generations than to itself...and so here you are. An unstoppable force who believes that he has come upon an unmovable object when the answer is all to simple."

"I can't!" Vash whined, "I won't..."

"Very well..." Legato had come prepared, off on the side, two females were thrown to the ground by the group of men that he was controlling, "Behold, the consequence of your foolishness."

"Milly!" The black haired girl cried for her friend as two men forcefully ripped open her dress, "Stop it! Let me go!"

"Stop them!" Vash shouted at Legato as the telekinetic prepared his ultimatum. As if suddenly calming down, Legato saw that his plan was working, "I see..."

"Now you understand?" Legato asked as Vash stood on his feet and pointed his pistol at Legato's face, "Then shoot me."

"Help us please!" Milly screamed as Meryl was completely unclothed and held in front of the crowd to be fondled and gropped by the struggling men. The horror in their eyes was just as bad as the desperate pleas for help in the eyes of the woman.

"When you put it that way..." Vash nodded assuredly to Meryl and locked a pair of gleaming determined eyes with Legato Bluesummers, "I guess I was over-thinking this."

"I'm glad you understand, Vash the Stam-" A gunshot rang through the valley as a bullet pierced through Legato's skull...

* * *

"You shot him dad!"

"Yeah son...I didn't have a choice..." Vash recounted to his young son, "It was either that or let him mind-control those poor people into raping and murdering your mother and aunt Milly."

"But..." His black-haired daughter gulped as she went on, "What about your rule..."

"Yeah dad...You said that no one has the right to take the life of another."

"But those who do nothing in the face of evil are just as bad as those who do evil." Vash said to his son, a boy who looked a bit like him but mostly took after his mother in looks except for the hair, "Besides...I'm not even finished."

"But you killed him!" The boy cried, "You killed another human being! I know he was a bastard-"

"Young man!" Meryl snatched the boy by his ear as the child yelped, "Watch your language!"

"Besides..." Vash continued without a beat though his cheerful smile waned, "Didn't kill him."

* * *

In a medical center near New July City, a man with blue hair sat in a wheelchair facing the blue summer sky.

There was little security, only medical staff to ensure that the patients in this center were tended to. Some of whom wore very revealing variations of their uniforms to "raise" the morale of some of the patients.

It disgusted Legato.

In fact, everything about this center disgusted him. Especially the nurses who paraded around like prostitutes marketing themselves to the richest buyer. The people were so cheerful to him, they cleaned him, fed him, moved him, bathed him, and treated him like he was a friend.

He did not want their friendship.

He preferred the mirror, to look into the scar where the Stampede's bullet had pierced his skull. It didn't end his life, but it had permanently damaged his mental capabilities. He lost his ability to control the bodies of others, as well as the ability to even move his own. The reason he could even form coherent thought was from years of agonizing defiance.

He never believed that he would end up like this, a broken soul trapped in a broken body waiting endlessly for an absolution which would never come. He should have died on that day, but he underestimated the Stampede's aiming prowess, he should have realized that Vash would have been able to do this to him.

To be honest, he didn't think that he would.

"Well played...Vash the Stampede." Legato thought to himself, a thought that actually brought humor to him, "I pushed you further than you were willing to be pushed...further than my master had intended. Now I have been defeated and my master was sure to follow."

"You've done far worse than kill me." Legato said to himself, "You've hurt me, and left me broken, continuously broken. You have left me as you originally left my master, as my master left your wench...Isolated in the midst of a dead scream."

"Howdy!" That man from before came by again, still carrying the oversized symbol of his false deity, "Enjoying the view Mr. Bluesummers? The blue summer sky, all thanks to God's good mercy."

In hindsight, Legato should ensured that Wolfwood's death was certain.

"Can't stay long today though, so here's a hot dog." Wolfwood placed a wrapped hot dog into Legato's lap and started to walk away, "May the Lord bless you on this fine day sir! Enjoy you're time here! I know that I did! Milly serving on the staff and all..."

Legato moved his eyes to stare down at the hot dog in his lap...it reminded him of memories that he would rather repress...memories of his time as a sex toy for those fat bastards. As those memories flooded in, one of the nurses came outside and fed the hot dog into Legato's mouth, all while her loose shirt displayed the woman's pierced nipple.

Disgusting...

"How you have hurt me...Vash the Stampede"

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**Yeah, this is a dabble into an alternate darker outcome, but I was always bothered by how much time Vash spent crying over having to kill Legato Bluesummers. A man who was arguably a more evil and twisted mind, than Knives.**

**Yes, Vash is a technical pacifist who never kills, but when you start to threaten the lives of your friends and loved ones because of your beliefs, then it crosses a line. For instance, Vash may have been indirectly responsible for Wolfwood's death, because he convinced wolfwood that even killing in self-defense is wrong. Or how about that father who wanted to kill the man who kidnapped, raped and killed his daughter and VASH IS BEGGING FOR THE BASTARD'S LIFE!  
**

**So I decided to come up with a way for Vash to get the best of Legato without needlessly endangering his friends or doing what Legato wanted. Not mention being a karmic punishment for what the bastard has done throughout the series.  
**

**Take from this whatever you will.  
**


End file.
